A GROUP of Glasgow-based nuns have turned film makers and launched their own cartoon version of the Bible in a bid to reach young children more familiar with Tom and Jerry than Adam and Eve.

The cartoon - which it is hoped will be the first in a series of five - cost more than #250,000 and has been in the pipeline for 10 years as the nuns fought to raise enough cash to make the animated dream a reality.

The Roman Catholic religious order, the Daughters of St Paul, believe the revenue made from this first half-hour cartoon will be enough to allow them to commission the storyboard on the second one.

Sister Carole O'Connor, of St Paul multimedia productions, based at Glasgow's Royal Exchange Square, speaking at the launch of the video which will be distributed worldwide, said: ''The idea for this came from our director, Sister Rina Risitano who wanted to make the Bible accessible to young children but in a way that they could understand, not just stories in the Bible but something that would help them understand the great love God has for us.''

The cartoon called Shema, The Promise Begins, features the voice of Sir Harry Secombe as the storytelling scribe, and artistic direction by Carl Gover, of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fame. It tells the story of the early part of the Old Testament.

Leader of Scotland's 750,000 Catholics, Cardinal Thomas Winning, told the children and adults who attended the first showing of the video at Glasgow's Film Theatre that it was ''amazing''.

The cardinal added: ''Our children today are children not of the word but of the image. We have got to build on that and that's where our strategy has to be first class, and I welcome this as a good first start.''